


Doubt Creeps In And Chills The Air

by junkshopdisco



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 10:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10591725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkshopdisco/pseuds/junkshopdisco
Summary: Winter falls on Camelot. It falls to Merlin to keep Arthur company as the search for Morgana becomes increasingly desperate.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Anything you recognise is the property of Aunty Beeb. I’m just playing in her sandbox.  
>  **Note:** Set in the break between series 2  & 3\. I had to make a judgement call on whether we’re dealing with Yule or Christmas in this Merlin verse. I went with Yule (there was reasoning, but I won’t bore you with it). Title and breaks taken from _Doubt Comes In_ , by Anais Mitchell, from my favourite album this year _Hadestown_ (it’s a folk opera about Orpheus and Eurydice - so that’s the very definition of _not for everyone_ , but I chose it because it’s creepy, weird, and beautiful)

______  
_Doubt comes in and all falls silent  
It’s as though you aren’t there_  
______

Merlin stands at the window, watching winter fall on Camelot. The city is sullen and silent. Snowflakes drift to their death on the ground and Merlin wants to tell them to stay in the clouds. The air has the all-through chill of stone but he barely feels it. There’s not much he does feel, these days. Sometimes he wonders if they’re all stuck in a spell, if Morgause has trapped them in madness and grief. It certainly feels like punishment for something, grinding through the same task over and over with no hope of release and no reward for effort. He sighs at the sky and thinks at least the changing weather is proof it just feels that way.

‘What are you doing, Merlin?’  
‘It’s snowing.’  
‘That may be, but I’m sure there’s something more useful you could be doing than watching it.’

Arthur no doubt means seeing to the clothes scattered around his room like corpses on a battlefield. Between pointless excursions to check on apocryphal sightings there hasn’t been much time for tidiness. Merlin runs his hands over his face. Morgana has been missing for so many months he can only remember what she looks like in the wake of dreams where he sees her choking on the floor. Her absence is everywhere, and beneath it Camelot – and all the hope he put into it – is sinking. There are, indeed, many useful things he could be doing. He’s not sure any of them have anything to do with looking for Morgana or picking up after a prince. 

‘ _Merlin_.’  
‘What?’  
‘Close the window and do something.’

Merlin does. He shuts out the comfort of the cold and busies himself at the table, collecting Arthur’s breakfast things in a little pile of _clink_ s. Over a map of Camelot and the outlying regions Arthur rubs at his temple. His eyes sit in permanent shadows. They darken after Uther rages at him, frantic and impotent: _I don’t care what it takes – damn it, Arthur, find her_. Arthur lets his father pour it into him, turns it into: _she was – is – like a sister to me, Merlin. I should have protected her. It was my duty to protect her_. Sometimes Merlin just wants to tell him the truth and take it all from him. There are a lot of things Arthur deserves, but this guilt isn’t one of them.

‘We should check the caves in the Forest of Balor again.’  
‘Do you really think there’s any point?’  
‘Unlike you, Merlin, I prefer action to staring at the weather.’

 

__

__

_______  
Doubt comes in and chills the air_  
______ 

‘Maybe Cenred _has_ taken her.’

Arthur pokes at the campfire, rearranging the logs with the tip of his sword. The flames flare with aggravation before settling, and Merlin sighs and listens for a moment to the crackle as it accompanies snow overburdening the branches and falling from the trees. They’re both so accustomed to this it’s almost more usual for them than the castle. Arthur kills them something to eat, he cooks it, and they trade thoughts and stories in caves as shadows mock them for their domesticity on the walls.

‘Why would he go to all the effort of snatching Morgana and not mention it for months? He’d use her to leverage territory. Why wait and risk her escaping?’  
‘You’re an expert on the way kings think now, are you, Merlin?’  
‘I do all right with princes. It’s not a huge leap. Although it _is_ a bit of a stretch to imagine a king as dim-witted as you.’

Arthur smiles. Away from Camelot he looks more like himself and Merlin can almost pretend they’re on a hunting trip. He huddles closer to the fire, pulling his coat around him. He’s wearing pretty much everything he owns and two blankets, but still the chill sneaks through and infests his bones.

‘Be time for the Yule feast, soon.’  
‘I’m not sure my father is in the mood for festivities.’  
‘You don’t think he’ll go ahead to keep everyone’s spirits up?’

Arthur shakes his head, and looks up, meets Merlin’s eye for the first time since they finished searching the caves and found them yawning and empty of everything but a small pack of wolves curled up against the snow.

‘When I was a child he cancelled it every year until I was eight.’  
‘Why?’  
‘Said it would be too painful without my mother. He can barely look at Morgana’s chair at dinner. I can’t blame him for being unable to bear the empty space at a feast. Especially – ’

Arthur pauses, frowns. Merlin shifts closer to the fire, to Arthur.

‘What?’  
‘It was Morgana’s arrival in our lives that prompted him to reinstate the Yule feast. It’s her favourite time of year. I remember – some lord’s son sent her jewellery shaped like a holly wreath as a token. She ran right through the castle to show my father and see if there was some reason she could wear it. I wish we had news for him, one way or the other.’

Merlin tucks his hands up into his sleeve to preserve the warmth in them, remembers another fire that smelt of smouldering pine.

‘My mother used to tell me stories about the winter feasts in Camelot,’ he says. ‘She said no-one was cold there because everyone had furs and cloaks, and there was feasting for weeks. She used to talk about berries like jewels and endless wine, and crowns made of sweet bread and whole roast pigs. I can’t decide if she was trying to take my mind off the cold, or make me leave by pretending it was all so glamorous.’

Arthur smiles, rubs his hands, splays his palms at the flames. 

‘What’s it like in Ealdor, this time of year?  
‘Snow comes really early there and then outstays its welcome,’ Merlin says, his voice fonder than he intended. ‘There’s this woman in the village who makes mulled cider to keep everyone warm. And when I say _warm_ I mean _drunk_. There’s a Yule boar if it’s been a good year and everyone crowds together round a bonfire to eat and toast the trees. It’s not fancy but – ’  
‘You sound like you miss it.’  
‘If you can’t be nostalgic when it’s snowing, when can you be?’  
‘We should get some rest.’

Obligingly Merlin tugs up his blankets and tucks himself onto his side, fits his ribs to the curve of the ground. He wonders how long they’ll do this, how long they’ll carry on searching places they’ve been to a dozen times. Maybe for the rest of their lives. He can already feel the cracks the idea leaves all the way up his spine.

 

__

______  
_Doubt comes in and turns the wine  
Doubt comes in and leaves a trace of vinegar_  
______

Merlin clusters the fir branches on the mantle, fidgeting them into different arrangements around the holly and the apples. The artistic streak in his family seems to have missed him entirely and however hard he squints and tilts his head it still just looks like gardening leftovers. His mother is so good at this, making nothing look special. Every year she’d tug holly and ivy out of the trees and knot them together in a garland fit for any king’s table. The image of her face pulls behind his bellybutton. He tries pillaring the holly against a candelabra, spikes the back of his hand.

‘Oh – damn it.’ 

He shoves the holly away and sucks the pinpricks of blood into his mouth. The last few days have been littered with memories of Ealdor and tiny, distracted injuries. Yesterday he burnt his wrist as he thought of Will falling out of a tree drunk on cider, laughing out _help, Merlin, I think I’m too pissed to break_. The day before that Merlin stubbed a toe and saw stars, distractedly thinking of his mother knitting for him after he went to bed, lying there smiling and forcing himself not to look, imagining what was spilling from the movement of her fingers. 

It’s been too long since he saw her. After his father died he asked Arthur for a day off so he could go home. _Missing your mother, Merlin? Sweet of you but I’m afraid there are more pressing matters than your homesickness. Have you forgotten Morgana’s missing? How about that half the castle was ruined by a bloody dragon?_ He’d been tempted to shout: _actually I need to tell her the only man she ever loved is dead because of me. It’s the sort of thing you do in person, don’t you think?_ He hadn’t, of course, and the letter he sent in his stead took him nearly two weeks to write. He’s still not sure _endlessly and eternally sorry_ really covers it, or that there’s any comfort in _he loved you, still. Always, I think._

He winds the fir along the mantle between the candles, tucking the apples in haphazardly. He rocks back on his heels to consider if he’s made it better or much, much worse.

‘What’s that?’  
‘Decorations. Allegedly,’ Merlin says. ‘Not my forte.’  
‘Is anything?’  
‘Nothing you’d want to hear about.’

Arthur frowns, takes off his sword belt. He tosses it onto the table and Merlin goes over and wraps the still-warm leather around the hilt.

‘You were right, the other day, when you said I missed Ealdor,’ Merlin says. He presses his lips together, tucks the belt about itself in a neat little knot that spills open again with the right touch. ‘I was wondering – since there’s not going to be a feast – ’  
‘Merlin, with Morgana gone – ’  
‘Only a day. If I’m so useless I don’t see why you can’t do without me.’ 

Arthur rubs at the corner of the shadow underneath his eye. The sigh that pushes its way out of his mouth has weariness laced in it, the kind sleep won’t sate. He shakes his head, murmurs, ‘You’re needed, Merlin.’

When he gets in and Gaius asks about his day, Merlin rails about Arthur being spoilt and selfish. When he’s alone with the dark he stares at the ceiling and loses hours to wondering about the flicker in Arthur’s eyes, and the plea he’s sure he saw in it.

 

__

_______  
Doubt comes in and kills the lights  
_______

‘Stop hovering, Merlin. It’s giving me a headache.’  
‘You know you can stare at the map as long as you want. There’s never going to be anywhere on it we haven’t searched.’

Arthur drops his quill and looks up, eyes hard and dangerous in the candlelight. Merlin rolls his apologetically and pours him some wine. Arthur reaches for the goblet and the flare of anger ebbs a little with the first sip.

‘You really think it’s pointless to keep looking?’  
‘Yes.’  
‘You’re either the only person in the kingdom who thinks it, or the only one stupid enough to say so to my face.’

Merlin smiles by way of reply. He’s not sure which it is, either. He’s sure the knights are no more enamoured than he is of the endless trips bouncing between Camelot’s boarders, scouting parties into other kingdoms, risking their limbs just because they swore to do so on someone else’s bidding. Sometimes he thinks Arthur takes him along to say what he can’t. Other times he just wishes he was anywhere but wherever he is.

Arthur leaves his quill and sinks back in his chair. The dark hollows beneath his eyes are getting deeper, and the quiet plea is still there but Merlin can’t tell what it means.

‘You’re exhausted,’ Merlin says, quietly. ‘I could have Gaius prepare something to help you sleep better – or I could do it, if you don’t want to bother him.’ 

Arthur’s gaze raises, says he knows Merlin really means _if you don’t want your father to know_. He declines with a dip of his head.

‘I’d barely trust you to make me dinner, Merlin.’  
‘Yeah but I’m better with potions than puddings.’  
‘I should stay alert, in any case.’

Merlin nods, even though he far from agrees. He can feel the cracks in Arthur, too, and they’re getting wider and more permanent.

‘How long are you going to keep looking? Snow’s getting worse. I can’t remember the last time I could actually feel my toes.’

Arthur absent-mindedly cradles his goblet, stares into the heart of the flame of the candle in front of him, as if willing it to reveal the answer.

‘How would I tell him, Merlin?’ he says. ‘How would I tell my father we’re giving up?’  
‘It’s not giving up. It’s just – surely he could be made to see it’s – unwise to sacrifice a prince to save someone who’s most likely dead, whatever place she holds in everyone’s affections.’  
‘You’d give _me_ up that easily?’  
‘Oh, for you I’d just have a cursory glance behind the curtains and say _nope, not there. Damn. He’d have made a fine king. Oh well_ , and move on with my day.’

Arthur laughs. The noise sounds utterly foreign in the room where he’s done nothing but huddle over maps and charts for weeks. Merlin smiles. He never thought he’d miss it, Arthur’s laugh.

‘Anything else you need?’ 

The pause drags, but then Arthur looks at him. The amusement is gone. His eyes are hooded with sadness and longing. The room constricts, like it’s shrunk around them and cloys to their skin.

‘Company. And strange as it is, Merlin, you’re the only person I can stand to be around at the moment.’

Merlin almost says something like _it’s my infectious charm, isn’t it? Everyone warms to it eventually_ , but the way Arthur’s looking at him – imploring and defiant of his own instinct to be anything but vulnerable – stills the words on his tongue. 

‘Well,’ Merlin says, ‘I can do that. Maybe it’s my forte.’

 

__

______  
_Orpheus, you’re shivering. Is it cold or fear?  
Just keep singing_  
______

The forest sags under the weight of fresh snowfall. The horses kick flurries up as they canter, exertion turning the cold air into stabs in Merlin’s lungs. Arthur’s horse slows, pulls up ahead on the edge of the forest, where the trees start to clear. Merlin scans the undergrowth, but with everything dipped in white people stand out, and there’s nothing in the trees but a scampering rabbit and a pair of flirting robins. He halts next to Arthur anyway.

‘What?’  
‘Here. It’s rude to show up without a gift.’ Arthur reaches into his saddlebag and tosses Merlin a stoppered flagon. Merlin catches it – barely – mouthing surprise. ‘Your sense of direction is appalling, Merlin. Ealdor is roughly five miles that way.’ He gestures to the east, kicks his horse in the gut. ‘I’ll search the rest of the forest alone. Meet me back here at sunset.’

Arthur’s horse trots into the forest before Merlin can protest, and he gestures confusion at the flagon in his hands and laughs at the trees.

Snow drapes over Ealdor like a thick, unruly blanket, renders the houses into toys and the fields into blankness. His mother looks at him with disbelief above the wood she’s collecting, like he’s a dream come strolling in the daylight. She runs and hugs him before he’s even finished dismounting. He breathes into her hair and clutches her to him, tears gnawing in his throat and twigs poking him in the ribs. 

‘I tried to come before but – ’  
‘It’s good of Arthur to let you come at all.’

She touches his hair and his chin, checking he’s real. Her eyes are frantic but pleased, and if she hates him just a little for what happened with his father, he can’t see it in them. 

‘This is for you.’ Merlin holds out the flagon, laughs because her arms are full. ‘It’s honeyed wine.’  
‘You shouldn’t spend your wages – ’  
‘Didn’t. Arthur gave it to me. I told him about your stories of the winter feasts in Camelot. Maybe he thought you’d like to do more than imagine.’ 

She smiles, bundles him into the house and next to the fire. She arranges the firewood on the hearth to dry out, gives the flagon pride of place on the shelf and reaches for something out of the basket at the foot of the wall. 

‘I was going to send these but as you’re here – ’ She sits next to him on the bench, presses something soft and woollen into his hands. ‘They’ll keep you warm.’

Merlin unfolds them. Mittens. He fingers the thumb and longing stabs at him, longing to be here, listening to her knit as the sky hollows into dark. When he’d sat here before, warming his cold-bitten fingers and toes, sometimes he’d gone over and over the stories of Camelot in his head. He’d imagined a place that was always smiling, always changing, where every day brimmed with new people and new things to try. He remembers the conversation they had here, his mother clutching his fingers – _don’t think I want to send you away, Merlin, you are so very precious to me – but you keep drawing attention and sooner or later someone will figure it out. It’s too small for you here_. He swallows. He’d asked her, _but where will I go?_ even though the answer was already in his head and wrapped around the idea of berries like jewels and never being cold. _I was thinking Camelot, Merlin. There’s someone there – someone I think you need to meet._

He pulls one of the mittens onto his hand, wiggles his fingers.

‘Perfect,’ he says, and kisses her forehead.  
‘How’s Gaius?’  
‘Same as ever. He’d have sent his regards if he’d known I was coming.’  
‘How are _you_? You look tired, Merlin.’  
‘Me? I’m – fine.’ Her fingers coax on his arm, and Merlin frowns. ‘Camelot’s not like it was. Uther’s half-crazed – Arthur’s so exhausted he’s probably going to get himself killed. It’s my fault.’  
‘What is?’  
‘A lot of things,’ he murmurs. He strokes the inside of the mittens, willing them to warm the bits of him deep inside that are frozen. ‘A lot of things are my fault.’

He looks at his mother. Concern wrinkles her brow and below it her eyes pierce, earnest and troubled. 

‘Tell me about here,’ he says. ‘Tell me everything so I can take it back with me?’

 

The day ends too quickly. Merlin rides to the edge of the forest with tears on his cheeks. He wipes them on his sleeve as he approaches, and Arthur looks away and pretends he didn’t see him do it. Snow starts to fall again, flakes obliterating on Merlin’s eyelashes and turning his nose numb. When they catch sight of the castle, striking out at the indigo sky, Arthur looks over.

‘Do I need to tell you not to say anything?’  
‘No. Thank you, Arthur.’  
‘You were moping around the place like a suicidal squirrel. It was depressing the statues. Besides, I heard a rumour about bounty hunters in the forest of Ascetir, remember?’ Merlin nods. ‘How’s your mother?’  
‘Delusional,’ Merlin says. ‘She thinks you’re a good man.’

 

__

______  
_Doubt comes in with tricky fingers_  
______

It’s little more than a skirmish, the sort of fight Arthur would normally consider a mere irritation and swat. Exhaustion drags in his limbs, though, and makes him sluggish. One of the bandits gets a lucky strike in, and Arthur staggers, more disoriented with surprise than hurt. Merlin is tired enough to be reckless. The first man’s ankle breaks on the root of a tree with a sickening snap. The second he hits with a rock anyone could see it’s beyond his strength to lift. They flee – yelping and scrambling – into the white-covered undergrowth, and Merlin looks at Arthur, half-expecting there to be horror in his eyes. Sometimes he craves it, the _Merlin?_ broken with questions and betrayal. It doesn’t come today.

They stand beneath the trees in a circle of trampled snow. Arthur’s breath is heavy, infects the air with weary blue, and when he draws his hand away from the place on his arm he’s clutching, blood like crimson wine drips onto the snow. Merlin winces.

‘We should turn back, get that seen to.’  
‘No. We keep looking.’  
‘Arthur – ’  
‘We _keep_ looking.’

A bit of Merlin wants to shout _why?_ He knows the answer, though. It’s the day of the Yule feast, and Arthur would probably give everything he has to return to Camelot with the words, _I found her, Father_. 

‘Fine.’  
‘I wasn’t asking your permission, Merlin.’  
‘I meant – ’ Merlin kneels, rummages in his knapsack. He returns to his feet with a small bottle and a bandage. ‘ – sit.’  
‘You’re a physician now, are you?’  
‘No,’ Merlin says, ‘but in case you haven’t noticed, you’re stubborn, and I’m the only one here.’

Merlin jerks his head at a fallen tree sprawled in the snow like a stricken warrior. Arthur rolls his eyes but complies, anyway. Merlin brushes the snow off the log and sits next to him, pulls Arthur’s arm closer. It’s not the worst he’s seen and the cold will help. He dampens the bandage with the potion he and Gaius have been working on. 

‘S’going to sting, b – ’  
‘More than the sword did?’  
‘Probably not.’ He looks up, meets Arthur’s eye and finds them amused. ‘It’ll stop it getting infected and dull the pain. Be good as new in a day or two.’

He holds the bandage over the wound, presses it down. Arthur flinches – just a little, but Merlin’s close enough to see. He binds it quickly so the potion will work, lets his fingers linger, like he can soothe it with his touch. When he’s not providing Arthur with company he’s been poring over Gaius’ books, learning everything he can to fix bones and mend wounds. He could see it, this, blood and snow – part nightmare, mostly logic. He wanted to be prepared for inevitability.

_I’ve saved you from a lot of things, Arthur Pendragon_ , he thinks. _Can I save you from yourself?_

 

__

______  
_Doubt comes in with fickle tongues_  
______

Even as they stand there, Merlin’s not sure which steps or what conversation – if there was one – brought them to the foot of the bed. He can’t remember Arthur saying it, _let’s give up, this is useless_ , just a blizzard blowing up around them and rendering looking for anything more distant than their noses impossible. He has a vague recollection of the king: _how hard is it to find one girl? You slayed a dragon, Arthur, and yet this you cannot do? Get out of my sight_. It feels like a dream, the weighty kind that lingers, even though it’s oblique.

Merlin fingers the edge of the bedpost. His bones ache with shivering and the distant heat of the fire almost hurts on his frigid skin. The day – all the days – squash down and prickle along his arms. His damp clothes cloy to him, and inside his hairs stand up, each of them alert. He should be in bed, curled into all the blankets he can find, warming his hands on soup. Or he should be filling the bath for Arthur or – something. He’s not. He’s not sure why, only that the fractures he can feel everywhere are his and he has no idea how to fix them. There’s no potion or spell for this, and Arthur stands there too, just as desperate, because there’s nothing for him to fight. The only certainty Merlin can find is that Arthur’s hair is damp and he’s never, ever, looked more defeated. They probably look the same. Maybe that’s what they’re doing here, trapped in startled and unspoken similarity.

‘You do know he’s wrong. You’ve done everything anyone could. More.’

Merlin’s voice echoes, even though he doesn’t remember thinking to speak. Arthur’s smile is miniscule, the tiniest tug on the corner of his mouth.

‘If that were true, Merlin, right now we’d be at a feast, and Morgana would be there, drinking and laughing and flirting with everyone.’

Arthur sighs. His eyes close, and Merlin knows there aren’t any words for it. He swallows – fingers flexing in a falter – then reaches out. The first bit of Arthur his hand finds is his forearm, rigid with the clench of his fist. He touches it lightly, just skimming the material like he’s tracing the creases. It doesn’t seem enough, and his breathing turns hard with frustration. What he wants is to fold Arthur up into himself, to take his guilt and sate his own. He wants to tell him stories until he’s free of the failings in his head, to cover every inch of his body with gestures of comfort until it’s all he can feel. He takes a shuffling step closer, and Arthur opens his eyes. It seems to take him an age to look up, but when he does his gaze is pleading but steady and not really surprised. Merlin moves his hand to his stomach. He has no idea what he’s doing, really, so he leaves it there not quite touching more than the drape of his shirt. Arthur shifts into him – into his touch – and the material tickles as it’s trapped between his palm and Arthur’s body. 

Slowly – so slowly that Merlin thinks he may have stilled time – Arthur leans in. His breath flutters against Merlin’s cheek, faster than it usually is, replaces itself with a kiss. Beneath its warmth Merlin tenses. His whole body tries to cling to the moment, from the scrunch of his toes to the twitch of his fingers into a ball against Arthur’s shirt. Arthur draws back, meets his eye. Merlin tries to see the consequences, spiralling out from here. Their gazes hold, and Arthur touches his own cheek lightly with the tip of his finger and lifts his eyebrow in suggestion. Or maybe question, because Merlin can feel his uncertainty, brittle in the air. He can’t map the spirals but inches forward anyway, brushes his lips over the place where Arthur’s finger was. His breath tightens at the soft noise his lips make on Arthur’s skin. He moves away, and Arthur smiles then tilts his head, offering his neck. Merlin watches the muscles tauten, fascinated, and Arthur’s fingers tap an invitation just above his collarbone. Merlin leans in again, steadying himself on the solidness of Arthur’s chest, fancying he can feel his heart quicken. He nudges the collar of his shirt aside, kisses the soft spot he’s uncovered, just parts his lips and lets his breath brush and his tongue taste. He watches Arthur’s throat bob and his flesh goosebump, and they both take a shaky, shallow lungful of air. Arthur’s fingers start towards his lips, but Merlin sees it coming and beats them there. He captures Arthur’s mouth and presses into him, revelling in the sudden flood of warmth as their lips fasten. It dislodges some of the ice in his stomach, and Merlin kisses him hard, fingers on the back of his neck, tongue braver than he thought as it makes Arthur his. 

A second later – like he’s started time again – Arthur’s lips and hands are everywhere, pushing at his clothes. His neckerchief is a wet pull around his throat and then gone, and Merlin snatches a breath as his coat slides from his shoulders. Arthur mouths his skin as he reveals it, shoving up his shirt and dragging it off, and Merlin lets his head fall back and stutters at the ceiling, clutching fistfuls of Arthur’s wet hair to keep upright. The greed of his own fingers once they’re there surprises him, and he rakes them over Arthur’s skull and down to his shoulders until he can focus enough to tug him out of his shirt too. He’s touched Arthur’s body before, tended and covered and undressed it, but it’s different now he’s invited to share it. The thought claws in his stomach like the most desperate and dangerous magic, and how much he wants it makes fear clamber up his spine in icy spikes. Still he edges them onto the bed, has no idea how it happens, how they get out of the rest of their damp clothes and under the covers. He thinks Arthur says the word _shivering_ but other than that it’s a flicker and then Arthur’s lips are trailing on his throat and Merlin’s scrambling into his lap, a mess of compulsion and craving and not knowing what else there is to do. He kisses Arthur’s chilled skin until he’s breathless. He licks the dips and hollows of his hip and his stomach and even his wrist, soothing the scars with his mouth, as if he can ingest them and make them his instead. In his head it’s _Arthur, this is for Arthur, this is what he needs_ , but it’s not really about Arthur at all.

They look at each other when Arthur’s inside him, mouths open against each other, both of them hollowed right down to their souls. Merlin’s hands shake a little, and he can’t tell at all if it’s cold or adrenaline or if he’s scared about how very much they need this. He closes his eyes, and everything is gone but the drag of Arthur’s fingernails down his back, leaving little trails of fire where they’ve been. 

 

__

______  
_Doubt comes in and my heart falters and forgets the songs it’s sung_  
______

The morning is flat and colourless. Merlin can tell even before he opens his eyes. He blinks at the canopy above the bed and a bit of him hopes Arthur’s not there. But he is. He’s leaning on the wall by the window. Beyond him the sky is the colour of duck eggs, and Merlin thinks more snow is cascading but it’s hard to say. He can feel Arthur all over him, like he’s still there, whispering with his fingers even as he bites at his shoulder and stifles the noises he’s making with his skin.

The room looks different from here. It strikes Merlin as ludicrous that he’s even thinking about it, but it does. The room used to be familiar to him in specific ways – stupid silverware that always needs cleaning – leaking window – the spot on the floor that never comes out and Arthur claims is boar bile. Now it’s shifted, like he’s really in it for the first time, like it belongs to him as much as Arthur. He already knows it won’t stay like this, and as if to confirm it the pillow rustles beneath his head and Arthur’s eyes flicker down as if he wishes he’d left, too.

Merlin sits up. The covers are heavy and when they shift a rush of cold assails his skin. He gets out anyway, fumbles into his clothes less elegantly than he got out of them. They’re still a bit damp and he shivers as they stick to him. Fleetingly he thinks about just going, slipping into the corridor as if he was never here, but he decides he’s already enough kinds of coward with Arthur. He goes over and peers out of the window. Camelot is still subdued by the snow. He wonders if anyone can see them, but no-one would think anything of it. He’s here more than not.

‘I didn’t mean to sleep so long.’  
‘Apparently I managed without you.’  
‘Wonders never cease.’

Arthur’s smile is slight but real, and Merlin touches his shoulder and runs his fingers all the way down his spine. Arthur stiffens, then gives in and eases back. Merlin strokes a circle in the hollow at the base, not knowing what he’s trying to say or if he’s doing it just to see if he can. 

‘I should go before Gaius sends a search party.’  
‘What will you tell him?’  
‘Lies.’

He kisses Arthur’s cheek, and leaves him looking at the snow.

 

__

______  
_The darkest hour of the darkest night comes right before the dawn_  
______

The blizzard obscures the sky, the tops of the trees barely peeking out. Arthur stares at it, and Merlin wonders what’s whirling through his head. He could be plotting new ways to sneak into the neighbouring kingdoms to scout for news, or thinking tangled thoughts about his father, or maybe it’s the nights they’ve shared, falling through his thoughts. Merlin thinks of little else, these days, but the desperate press of Arthur’s body into his, and clawing cold-reddened fingers through his hair. With anyone else he’d be embarrassed about his own neediness, but it’s always reflected in Arthur’s eyes. Arthur doesn’t know the source of his guilt and his sorrow – maybe thinks it’s some echo of his own – but he doesn’t need to know where it comes from to want to squash it anyway he can. Merlin edges closer, heat seeping into his fingers. Arthur glances at him before his gaze goes back to the snow.

‘How can something so hectic be so quiet?’ he says.  
‘Dunno. Here.’ Merlin hands Arthur one of the tankards. He lied to the kitchen maids – _the prince requested some mulled wine – no, I’ll take it, you’ve enough to do_ – and Arthur looks down at the bob of the spices in liquid red. ‘It’ll stave off the cold a bit.’

Arthur lifts his tankard, and raises it at the fir trees just poking through in the distance.

‘What are you – ’  
‘Being seasonal. Didn’t you say something about a bonfire and toasting the trees?’  
‘You do that with cider, not wine. Otherwise it’s just silly.’

Arthur smiles, sips his drink. He coughs as he swallows, his eyes widening in surprise.

‘Watch out for the brandy,’ Merlin says, and sips his own. Arthur meets his eye, briefly exactly who he used to be before Morgana disappeared, wry and amused. Merlin smiles at him, the soft scent of stewed spices tickling at his nostrils. Camelot is still fractured and far too quiet, but he thinks they’ve closed the cracks in each other, just a little.  
‘Will you stay?’ Arthur says. Merlin nods, unsure why Arthur keeps asking when _yes_ is written over every inch of him. ‘You do know, don’t you, Merlin, that this – ’ Arthur hesitates, his fingers closing around the fat, curved belly of his tankard. ‘It can never be more than what it already is.’  
‘Contrary to the way it appears sometimes, I’m not an idiot, and I haven’t forgotten who you are.’

Arthur smiles, and Merlin fancies he sees sadness in it. Another of those moments where they look exactly the same, perhaps. Duty and destiny pay scant regard to feelings, and they both know it. Merlin leans his shoulder against Arthur’s. He watches a clump of snow fall from the top of the window and race to its death on the ledge.

‘You know what I love about snow?’ Merlin says, and feels rather than sees Arthur shake his head. ‘It melts. It blows in – changes the world until you can’t remember what things looked like without it – and then it’s gone again, like it was never there. Maybe that’s why you can’t hear it. It’s practising, like even when it’s falling, it knows it won’t exist for very long.’  
‘That’s either very reassuring, or desperately bleak.’  
‘S’both. Truth always is, isn’t it?’  
‘So now you’re a philosopher and a poet as well as a hapless servant?’  
‘Well,’ Merlin says, ‘looking after you was never going to occupy _all_ of my time.’

Arthur sighs, meets his eye askance. Merlin laughs ripples into his mulled wine, until Arthur kisses him. He tastes deep and sweet and spiced, and his fingers are warm under Merlin’s clothes. 

Merlin closes his eyes and savours it. When they melt like snow, this will always have existed, and in its wake they’ll be exactly what they always were: more than and less than friends at the same time. At once it’s reassuring and desperately bleak. That’s how he knows it’s the truth.


End file.
